Electoral  Reform  in 
France 


By 

JAMES  W.  GARNER 

University  of  Illinois 


Reprinted  from  The  American  Political  Science  Review ; 
Vol.  VII , No.  November  IQ  1 3 


& e. 

• fU- 


1 


Reprinted  from  The  American  Political  Science  Review,  Vol.  VII,  No.  4,  November,  1913 


ELECTORAL  REFORM  IN  FRANCE 

JAMES  W.  GARNER 

University  of  Illinois 

I.  HISTORICAL  REVIEW 

Since  the  separation  of  church  and  state  in  1905  the  paramount 
question  of  French  internal  politics  has  been  that  of  electoral 
reform.  No  other  question  has  been  so  much  discussed  in  par- 
liament and  in  the  country,  or  has  been  the  subject  of  so  many 
reports,  books,  brochures  and  magazine  articles.  It  has  occupied 
a leading  place  in  the  ministerial  declarations  of  the  last  five 
cabinets  and  has  caused  the  downfall  of  one.  It  was  one  of  the 
paramount  issues  in  the  parliamentary  elections  of  1910  and  an 
overwhelming  majority  of  the  deputies  in  the  present  chamber 
were  chosen  upon  programs  which  pledged  them  to  the  support 
of  electoral  reform.1  Furthermore,  the  present  chamber,  elected 
in  1910,  has  on  four  different  occasions  by  large  majorities  voted 
in  favor  of  electoral  reform  and  on  July  10,  1912,  it  passed  a bill 
by  a vote  of  339  to  217  embodying  the  more  important  reforms 
demanded  by  the  country.  But  so  far  the  senate  has  refused  its 
concurrence. 

The  chief  reform  demanded  by  the  country  and  the  one  which 
the  chamber  of  deputies  has  several  times  approved  by  large 
majorities  is  the  substitution  of  the  general  ticket  method  ( scrutin 
de  lisle ) of  electing  deputies,  coupled  with  a system  of  propor- 
tional representation,  in  the  place  of  the  single-member-district 
method  {scrutin  uninominal,  or  scrutin  d’arrondissement)  which 


1 The  programs  or  platforms  of  the  deputies  elected  in  1910  have  been  collected 
and  printed  by  the  state  under  the  title:  Programmes,  Professions  de  Foi  et  Engage- 
ments JElectoraux  de  1910,  No.  385  (Annexe)  ch.  des  Deps.,  Dixieme  Leg.  ses.  extra, 
de  1910.  Paris  1910,  pp.  1267.  A summary  and  analysis  of  these  programs  may  be 
found  in  the  parliamentary  document  entitled : Programmes  et  Engagements  Elector- 
aux , by  Camille  Foquet,  No.  385,  ch.  des  Deps.  Dixieme  Leg.,  ses.  extra,  de  1910. 

610 


ELECTORAL  REFORM  IN  FRANCE 


611 


has  been  in  force  since  the  establishment  of  the  Third  Repub- 
lic, with  the  exception  of  the  period  from  1885  to  1889.  Another 
reform  for  which  there  is  more  real  need  and  one  which  has  been 
the  subject  of  a multitude  of  parliamentary  reports  and  pro  jets 
is  legislation  to  insure  secrecy  of  voting  and  for  the  protection 
of  the  elections  against  corrupt  and  fraudulent  practices.  Bills 
for  this  purpose  have  passed  both  chambers  a number  of  times 
in  recent  years  but  not  until  July  of  the  present  year  were  they 
able  to  agree  upon  a common  measure. 

Since  1789  France  has  oscillated  in  practice  between  the  “scrutin 
d’arrondissement”  and  the  “ scrutin  de  liste”  methods  of  elect- 
ing deputies,  each  method  in  one  form  or  another  having  been 
six  times  tried  and  as  many  times  abandoned.2  The  republicans 
of  1848,  considering  the  “ scrutin  de  liste”  system  as  being  more 
in  accord  with  republican  ideas  than  the  system  of  “ scrutin 
d’arrondissement”  adopted  it  by  a practically  unanimous  vote, 
but  with  the  establishment  of  the  empire  it  was  displaced  by 
Napoleon  III  who  preferred  to  have  the  deputies  chosen  from 
small  single-member  districts  for  the  good  reason  that  it  greatly 
facilitated  his  notorious  policy  of  interfering  in  the  elections  in 
the  interest  of  the  government  candidates.3 

The  national  assembly  which  framed  the  present  constitu- 
tional laws  of  France  was  elected  by  “ scrutin  de  liste”  and  the 
commission  of  thirty  to  which  was  intrusted  the  task  of  framing 
a constitutional  projet  reported  in  favor  of  this  system,  but  the 
famous  amendment  of  Lefevre-Pontalis  providing  for  the  system 
of  “ scrutin  d’arrondissement”  was  preferred  by  a small  majority 
of  the  Assembly  and  it  became  Article  14  of  the  Constitutional 
law  of  November  30,  1875. 4 


2 See  historical  summaries  in  Benoist,  La  Reforme  Electorate  (1908),  p.  121,  and 
the  Revue  du  Droit  Public , etc.,  vol.  25,  pp.  183-194. 

3 For  discussions  of  the  methods  which  Napoleon  employed  to  control  the  elec- 
tions see  Lefevre-Pontalis,  Les  Lois  et,  les  Moeurs  Electorates  (1885),  pp.  61-140; 
Jules  Ferry,  La  Lutte  Electorate  en  1863  (1863),  pp.  3-104  (valuable  illustrative 
documents  appended);  and  Weil,  Les  Elections  Legislatives  Depuis  1789  (1895),  ch. 
ix. 

4 For  the  history  of  this  amendment  see  Magne,  Etude  sur  le  Scrutin  de  Liste  et 
le  Scrutin  Uninominal  (1895),  p.  38,  and  Chardon,  Rtforme  Electorate  (1910),  p.  63. 


612 


THE  AMERICAN  POLITICAL  SCIENCE  REVIEW 


For  the  most  part  the  Republican  members  of  the  national  as- 
sembly favored  the  “scrutin  de  liste”  method  for  it  was  they 
who  had  suffered  most  from  the  exploitation  by  Napoleon  III  of 
the  “ scrutin  d’arrondissement”  system  during  the  second  em- 
pire. For  the  opposite  reasons  the  Monarchists  opposed  it.  Not- 
withstanding the  opposition  of  the  Republicans  to  the  “scrutin 
d’arrondissement,”  the  first  elections  (1876)  after  its  introduction 
were  distinctly  favorable  to  them.  To  their  surprise  they  elected 
twice  as  many  deputies  as  the  Conservatives  did  and  at  the 
elections  of  1877,  following  the  dissolution  on  account  of  the 
Seize  Mai  crisis,  their  majority  was  still  further  increased.  But 
the  attempt  of  MacMahon  to  carry  by  intimidation,  promises  and 
corruption,  the  elections  of  1877,  an  attempt  which  was  facili- 
tated by  the  smallness  of  the  electoral  circumscriptions,  inten- 
sified the  republican  preference  for  the  system  of  election  by  gen- 
eral ticket  from  larger  districts.  Gambetta  put  himself  at  the 
head  of  the  movement  for  the  reestablishment  of  the  “scrutin  de 
liste”  and  on  the  twentieth  of  May,  1881,  he  denounced  from  the 
tribune  the  single-member  district  method  of  choosing  deputies 
as  the  “last  fortress  of  the  Monarchists”  and  referred  to  the 
chamber  elected  by  this  system  as  a “miroir  bris6”  in  which 
France  did  not  recognize  her  own  image.  Moved  by  Gambetta’s 
eloquence  the  chamber  passed  a bill  making  the  department  the 
electoral  circumscription  and  providing  that  all  the  deputies  to 
which  each  department  was  entitled  should  be  chosen  at  large 
on  the  same  ticket.  But  the  bill  was  rejected  by  the  senate  in 
which  Conservative  influence  was  still  predominant.  Gambetta 
having  in  the  meantime  become  president  of  the  council,  put  at 
the  head  of  his  program  a proposal  for  constitutional  revision 
which  included  among  other  things  the  “scrutin  de  liste”  system 
of  electing  deputies,  but  on  this  question  the  government  was 
defeated  and  his  ministry  resigned.  Toward  the  end  of  the  year 
1881  Gambetta  died  and  with  his  passing  the  system  of  “scrutin 
de  liste”  lost  its  most  eloquent  and  tireless  defender.  At  the 
same  time,  singularly  enough,  his  death  opened  the  way  for  the 
success  of  the  reform  which  he  had  long  advocated,  because  his 
great  popularity  had  aroused  no  little  jealousy  among  his  repub- 


ELECTORAL  REFORM  IN  FRANCE 


613 


lican  colleagues,  some  of  whom  professed  to  believe  that  he  had 
dictatorial  designs,  in  which  case  the  enlargement  of  the  electoral 
districts  would  facilitate  the  employment  of  the  plebiscite  for 
such  purposes,  as  it  did  a few  years  later  at  the  time  of  General 
Boulanger’s  ascendancy.  This  fancied  danger  now  removed  by 
Gambetta’s  death,  the  chamber  proceeded  (1885)  by  a practi- 
cally unanimous  vote  to  adopt  the  reform  for  which  Gambetta 
had  pleaded  with  so  much  eloquence  during  his  lifetime  and  upon 
which  it  had  overthrown  his  ministry  in  1881. 

The  first  elections  under  the  new  law  took  place  in  October, 
1885,  and  the  results  were  disappointing  to  those  Republicans 
who  had  expected  to  see  the  reactionary  element  eliminated  from 
the  chamber.  To  their  astonishment  200  Conservatives  and  Re- 
actionaries were  elected,  thus  regaining  all  the  ground  they  had 
lost  in  1877  on  account  of  the  popular  revolt  against  MacMahon’s 
policy.  The  dissatisfaction  of  the  Republicans  was  soon  inten- 
sified by  the  plebiscitiary  successes  of  General  Boulanger.  This 
picturesque  and  extraordinarily  popular  man  having  been  com- 
pulsorily retired  from  the  army,  conceived  the  idea  of  posing  as 
a saviour  of  France  and  of  taking  a plebiscite  of  the  country. 
Securing  an  election  to  the  chamber  he  would  occupy  the  seat 
until  a vacancy  occurred  in  some  other  department,  whereupon, 
he  would  become  a candidate  for  the  vacant  seat.  As  the  depart- 
ment instead  of  the  arrondissement  was  the  electoral  circum- 
scription, the  task  of  appealing  to  France  was  greatly  simplified 
for  he  had  only  to  carry  a few  of  the  larger  departments  to  be 
able  to  claim  that  he  had  the  endorsement  of  the  nation.  His 
election  in  the  department  of  the  Seine  in  Janary,  1889,  when  he 
received  244,149  votes  against  162,414  for  the  Radical  candidate, 
greatly  alarmed  the  Republicans  aud  they  made  haste  to  pass  a 
bill  reestablishing  the  system  of  “scrutin  d’arrondissement”  (Feb- 
ruary, 1889)  and  the  senate  promptly  gave  its  concurrence  by  a 
large  majority. 

Thus  the  system  of  “scrutin  de  liste”  after  a single  trial  was 
done  away  with  by  the  same  parliament  that  had  established  it, 
not  so  much  because  of  objections  of  principle,  but  because  it 
facilitated  the  designs  of  a would-be-dictator.  An  interesting  fact 


614 


THE  AMERICAN  POLITICAL  SCIENCE  REVIEW 


in  connection  with  the  history  of  this  question  was  the  change  of 
opinion  which  took  place  among  the  Republicans  in  respect  to 
the  merits  of  the  two  methods  of  election.  In  1885  they  voted 
almost  solidly  against  the  single  member  district  method;  in  1889 
most  of  them  voted  for  its  reestablishment.5  The  restoration  of 
the  system  of  “scrutin  d'arrondissement”  enabled  the  Republi- 
cans at  the  elections  of  1889  to  regain  the  seats  they  had  lost  in 
1885  and  their  majority  was  still  further  increased  in  1893,  a re- 
apportionment law  having  been  passed  in  July  of  this  year  pro- 
viding for  a more  equitable  distribution  of  seats. 

Notwithstanding  these  facts  the  old  Republican  tradition  that 
the  system  of  “ scrutin  de  liste”  was  more  in  harmony  with  their 
principles  continued  to  persist  and  in  a few  years  a new  agitation 
for  the  reestablishment  of  this  system  was  well  under  way.  Most 
of  the  projects  laid  before  Parliament  after  1895,  however,  pro- 
posed to  combine  the  general  ticket  method  with  a system  of 
proportional  representation  to  be  discussed  hereafter.6  The 
system  of  “ scrutin  de  liste”  with  proportional  representation  was 
the  subject  of  serious  discussion  in  the  Parliament  for  the  first 
time  in  1902  when  it  was  strongly  combatted  by  Waldeck-Rous- 
seau,  president  of  the  council,  who  affirmed  that  it  would  lead 
to  a further  splitting  up  of  the  already  numerous  political  parties 
of  France  and  who  denounced  as  sophistry  the  contention  that 
minorities  were  unrepresented  under  the  system  of  “ scrutin  d’ar- 
rondissement.”  In  1906  a commission  on  universal  suffrage  with 
Charles  Benoist  as  president  was  created  by  the  chamber  to 
study  the  various  projects  for  electoral  reform  and  in  1907  it 
submitted  a report  through  M.  Flandin  strongly  advocating  the 
adoption  of  a system  of  proportional  representation,  and  this 
was  followed  two  years  later  by  a supplementary  report  prepared 
by  M.  Varenne. 


5 Of  the  232  Deputies  who  voted  in  favor  of  “ scrutin  de  liste”  in  1885  only  85 
voted  to  retain  it  in  1889. 

6 It  should  be  remembered  that  the  system  of  1885-89  was  what  the  French  call 
“ scrutin  de  liste”  “pure  and  simple/’  proportional  or  minority  representation 
constituting  no  part  of  the  scheme.  The  result  was  to  give  to  the  majority  party 
in  each  department  all  the  deputies  to  which  the  department  was  entitled. 


ELECTORAL  REFORM  IN  FRANCE 


615 


The  Briand  ministry  in  1909  placed  electoral  reform  at  the  head 
of  its  program  and  it  was  M.  Briand,  speaking  at  Perigueux  the 
same  year,  who  referred  to  the  arrondissements  as  “ stagnant 
seas’ ’ as  Gambetta  in  his  day  had  called  the  system  a “ broken 
mirror.”  In  November  the  chamber  of  deputies  passed  an  elec- 
toral reform  bill  after  some  three  weeks  of  debate.  The  first  part 
of  the  proposition,  that  the  chamber  of  deputies  should  be  elected 
by  “scrutin  de  liste,”  was  adopted  by  a vote  of  379  to  142;  the 
second  part,  that  the  deputies  should  be  elected  according  to  a 
system  of  proportional  representation  was  adopted  by  a vote  of 
281  to  235.  At  this  juncture,  Briand  caused  no  little  astonish- 
ment by  declaring  that  the  government  could  not  accept  the  bill 
because  the  country  was  not  ready  for  it.  Moreover,  he  con- 
tended, the  problem  of  electoral  reform  should  be  connected  with 
that  of  administrative  reform  and  the  two  worked  out  together.7 
He  asked  therefore  that  the  matter  be  deferred  until  an  oppor- 
tunity should  be  had  for  consulting  the  electors  on  the  ques- 
tion. The  government  having  raised  the  question  of  confidence 
the  chamber  thereupon  rescinded  its  action  by  a vote  of  291 
to  225. 

This  was  the  situation  when  the  parliamentary  elections  oc- 
curred in  1910.  As  has  already  been  stated,  the  question  of  elec- 
toral reform,  was  a leading  if  not  the  paramount  issue  in  the  cam- 
paign and  it  was  widely  discussed  by  the  candidates  and  the 
press.  Of  the  597  deputies  elected,  134  had  declared  themselves 
in  favor  of  electoral  reform  without  specifying  the  nature  of  the 
reform  desired;  223  had  expressed  a preference  for  proportional 
representation;  50  had  demanded  the  introduction  of  the  system 
of  “ scrutin  de  liste”  without  proportional  representation;  while 
only  50  were  declared  partisans  of  “ scrutin  d’arrondissement.”8  A 
large  number  of  deputies  who  had  voted  against  the  electoral 
reform  bill  in  1909  failed  of  reelection.  Of  the  popular  vote  only 
1,652,522  out  of  a total  of  8,517,143  were  cast  for  candidates  who 

7 Faure,  ‘‘La  Legislature  qui  Finit  et  la  Reforme  Electorate”  Rev.  Pol.  et  Pari. 
v.  62,  p.  433. 

8 Programmes,  de  Foi  et  Engagements  j@lectoraux,  cited  above.  See  also  Grous- 
sier’s  Rapport,  No.  826  Ch.  desDeps.,  1911  p.  3,  and  Le  Temps  for  May  24,  1910. 


616 


THE  AMERICAN  POLITICAL  SCIENCE  REVIEW 


were  in  favor  of  leaving  the  existing  electoral  system  untouched.9 
With  this  mandate  from  the  electorate,  the  Briand  government 
could  no  longer  plead  uncertainty  as  to  the  popular  demand  and 
in  June  1910  it  laid  before  the  chamber  a new  bill  embodying  the 
principles  of  “scrutin  de  liste,”  proportional  representation  and  a 
six  year  tenure  for  deputies.  The  debates  began  in  the  chamber 
in  the  spring  of  1911  and  in  July,  1912,  this  electoral  reform  bill 
passed  the  chamber  by  a large  majority,  the  success  of  the  measure 
being  mainly  due  to  the  vigorous  and  energetic  support  of  the 
president  of  the  council,  M.  Poincare.  But  the  senate  commission 
to  which  it  was  referred  reported  adversely  upon  the  bill  in  1913 
thus  causing  the  resignation  of  the  Briand  ministry  and  an  in^ 
definite  postponement  of  further  consideration  of  the  question. 

II.  “ SCRUTIN  DE  LISTE”  AND  1 ( SCRUTIN  d’aRRONDISSEMENt” 

COMPARED 

We  may  now  consider  in  turn  some  of  the  more  important  ob- 
jections that  are  today  being  urged  against  the  “ scrutin  d’ar- 
rondissement”  system  of  choosing  deputies  in  France.  First  of 
all,  it  is  said  to  be  responsible  for  the  steady  decline  in  the  char- 
acter and  intellecutal  niveau  of  the  chamber.  Instead  of  resulting 
in  the  election  of  deputies  with  large  views — men  who  regard 
themselves  as  the  representatives  of  the  country  as  a whole — it 
leads  in  practice  to  the  election  of  small  politicians  with  narrow 
horizens,  deputes  de  clocher,  who  corsider  themselves  merely  as  the 
political  agents  of  their  petty  cir  cumscriptions.  It  has  come  to 
pass  that  national  party  programs,  issues  and  principles  play 
little  part  in  French  parliamentary  elections,  the  choice  of  the 
deputy  being  determined  mainly  with  reference  to  local  or  per- 
sonal considerations.10 

9 For  the  statistics  see  Groussier’s  Rapport  sur  V election  des  deputes,  etc.,  p.  4. 
Also  J.  L.  Bonnet’s  Report  to  the  10th  Cong,  of  the  Rad.  and  Rad.  Soc.  party,  1910, 
p.  2;  and  Tronqual,  La  Representation  Proportionnelle,  1910,  pp.  60-61. 

10  Chatelier  ( Reforme  Republicaine,  1911,  p.  94)  emphasizes  this  point  and  declares 
that  the  “scrutin  d’an-ondissement”  method  of  election  has  made  the  chamber 
a body  of  mediocres.  See  also  Moreau,  Pour  le  Regime  Parlementaire,  1903,  p.  319; 
Des  Champs  Le  Malaise  de  la  Democratie,  1899,  p.  51 ; Chaudordy  La  France  en  1889, 
p.  89;  Goblet  in  the  Revue  Politique  et  Parlementaire  for  1905,  p.  254  ff. ; Buisson, 


ELECTORAL  REFORM  IN  FRANCE 


617 


The  role  of  the  French  deputy  is  today  largely  that  of  a sort 
of  charge  d’affaires  sent  to  Paris  to  see  that  his  constituency  ob- 
tains its  share  of  the  favors  which  the  government  has  for  dis- 
tribution.11 Instead  therefore  of  occupying  himself  with  ques- 
tions of  legislation  of  interest  to  the  country  as  a whole  he  is 
engaged  in  playing  the  role  of  a mendicant  for  his  petty  district. 
He  spends  his  time  in  the  anterooms  of  the  ministers  soliciting 
favors  for  his  political  supporters  and  grants  for  his  arrondisse- 
ment.12  The  ministers  being  dependent  upon  the  support  of  the 
deputies  naturally  desire  to  keep  on  good  terms  with  them,  the 
importance  of  which  is  all  the  greater  in  France  because  the  min- 
isterial tenure  is  very  brief  and  uncertain.13  Under  such  con- 

» 

La  Politique  Radicale , 1908,  pp.  137  ff. ; Fouill^e,  La  Democratic  Politique  et  Sociale, 
2 ed.  1910,  pp.  25  ff.;  Poincar&,  Questions  et  Figures  Politiques,  1907,  pp.  95-103; 
Hilleret,  La  Reforme  Electorate,  1910,  pp.  15  ff. ; Cloarec,  La  Reforme  Electorate, 
1911,  p.  5 ff. 

11 M.  Scherer,  La  Democratic  en  France,  pp.  35-36,  remarks  that  so  great  is  the 
feeling  that  the  deputy  must  look  after  the  local  needs  of  his  constituents  that 
they  sometimes  call  upon  him  to  procure  Parisian  nurses  for  their  families ; others 
write  letters  describing  their  physical  ailments  and  requesting  him  to  consult  a 
medical  specialist  at  the  Capital  for  them.  One  deputy  declared  that  he  received 
an  average  of  two  letters  of  this  kind  every  day  during  his  term.  Some  want 
appointments  as  venders  of  tobacco;  others  charge  him  with  doing  their  shopping, 
etc. 

12Reinach,  Du  RStablissement  du  Scrutin  de  Liste,  p.  21. 

13  The  actual  relation  between  the  deputy  and  his  constituents  and  between  the 
deputy  and  the  minister  is  well  described  by  M.  Sabatier  in  an  article  in  the  Revue 
Politique  et  Parlementaire,  for  November,  1911,  pp.  201  ff.  The  existing  parliamen- 
tary regime,  he  says,  is  a counterfeit.  Its  true  name  should  be  “deputantism.” 
Between  a ministry  which  does  not  desire  to  be  overthrown  and  deputies  who 
wish  at  all  hazards  to  be  reelected,  an  accord  is  soon  entered  into.  The  deputies 
promise  the  ministers  the  necessary  votes  of  confidence  and  a free  hand  in  the 
administration  of  the  government.  In  return  the  ministers  agree  to  appoint  the 
friends  of  the  deputies  to  office,  give  them  decorations,  and  advance  their  supporters 
who  are  already  functionaries.  Thus  the  deputies  surrender  their  control  over 
the  ministry  and  the  ministers  abdicate  into  the  hands  of  the  deputies  their  power 
to  appoint,  and  control  the  functionaries.  “The  ministers  are  dependent  upon 
the  deputies,”  says  Moreau,  “and  the  deputies  upon  the  electors  and  the  electors 
are  more  concerned  with  local  interests  than  with  the  general  interests.  . . 

The  deputy  desirous  of  retaining  his  seat  occupies  himself  with  local  interests, 
harasses  the  ministers,  enters  into  deals  with  them;  the  ministers  absorbed  with 
this  traffic  are  prevented  from  considering  weighty  affairs  of  state.”  Pour  Le 
Regime  Parlementaire,  p.  319. 


618 


THE  AMERICAN  POLITICAL  SCIENCE  REVIEW 


ditions  the  deputy  has  become  the  political  master  of  his  circum- 
scription; he  dictates  appointments  and  promotions,  the  conferring 
of  decorations  and  the  distribution  of  local  favors  generally. 
He  speaks  of  “my  arrondissement,”  as  though  it  were  his  fief  and 
of  “my  prefect”  as  though  this  official  were  his  vassal.14 

Many  French  writers  have  dwelt  upon  the  subjection  of  the 
deputy  to  the  tyranny  of  local  influences,  the  consequent  loss  of 
his  independence  and  the  abasement  of  the  character  and  ability 
of  the  chamber  as  a whole.  M.  Scherer  in  his  study  of  the  French 
democracy,15  remarks  that  a deputy  has  hardly  crossed  the  thresh- 
hold  of  the  Palais  Bourbon  before  he  begins  to  lay  plans  for  the 
strengthening  of  his  position  with  his  constituents  in  order  to 
secure  a reelection.  This  is  the  one  preoccupation  that  dominates 
his  whole  official  life,  colors  his  opinions  and  determines  his 
votes.  First  of  all,  he  must  make  himself  the  master  of  his  dis- 
trict; he  must  look  after  the  local  interests  and  see  that  appro- 
priations are  made  for  local  railroads,  public  fountains  and  mon- 
uments, repairs  for  the  churches  and  pictures  for  the  altar;  he 
must  listen  to  the  solicitations  for  office  from  his  friends  and 
their  friends;  he  must  make  promises  and  what  is  more  difficult 
he  must  see  that  they  are  fulfilled.16  Speaking  of  the  esprit  de 
clocher  and  the  dependence  to  which  the  deputy  has  been  re- 
duced, M.  Poincare,  now  President  of  the  Republic,  observes: 
“Before  a parliament  composed  of  members  thus  paralyzed, 
the  government  itself  is  afflicted  with  a sort  of  ataxia.  There  is 
between  it  and  the  deputies  as  between  the  deputies  and  the 
electors  a constant  mutuality  of  services.  The  government 
distributes  daily  nourishment  to  the  arrondissements : appoint- 
ments, subventions  and  decorations.  The  deputies  in  return,  at 
the  time  of  the  balloting,  bring  to  it  those  little  rectangular  cards 
upon  which  is  inscribed  the  fate  of  cabinets.  Do  ut  des,  do  ut 

14  Chantovine,  En  Province,  1910,  p.  11. 

15  La  Democratic  en  France , pp.  25-36. 

16  Henry  Leyret,  in  several  interesting  books,  has  dwelt  upon  the  baneful  effects 
of  the  present  system  of  electing  deputies;  of  the  role  which  they  play  as  political 
masters  of  their  districts;  and  of  the  petty  local  influences  to  which  they  are  sub- 
ject. See  especially  his  Tyrans  Ridicules,  1910,  pp.  15  £f. ; his  La  Republique  et  les 
Politiciens,  1909,  and  La  Tyrannie  des  Politiciens,  1910. 


ELECTORAL  REFORM  IN  FRANCE 


619 


facias.  The  Ministry  which  should  be  bold  enough  to  withdraw 
from  the  conditions  of  the  bargain  would  be  quickly  removed  from 
the  realm  of  reality.  At  the  present  time  the  chamber  of  deputies 
is  not  only  the  mirroir  brise  of  which  Gambetta  spoke ; it  is  a body 
which  too  often  reflects  the  tyrannical  wills  of  a few  provincial 
committees  interposed  between  the  people  and  their  representa- 
tives.” “The  notion  of  the  general  interest,”  he  says,  “is  more 
and  more  obscured  in  the  minds  of  a large  number  of  electors; 
individual  appetites  have  become  aggravated;  people  formerly 
the  most  honest  and  incorruptible,  accustomed  to  favors  have 
contracted  the  debasing  habit  of  mendicity,  ....  depu- 
ties condemned  to  be  merely  the  humiliating  agents  of  the  elec- 
tors carry  on  their  shoulders  the  weight  of  ancient  servitudes. 
Forced  to  isolated  struggles  in  their  petty  circumscriptions  against 
adversaries  who  are  never  disarmed,  always  menaced  in  their  un- 
stable positions,  always  uncertain  by  reason  of  the  precarious- 
ness of  their  victories,  they  have  sought  to  rally  and  maintain 
their  majority  by  the  most  natural  means  which  are  open  to 
them,  namely  facile  promises,  personal  services,  official  distinc- 
tions and  administrative  aids The  first  condi- 

tion of  relief  is  to  cut  the  “ bandalettes”  which  bind  the  deputy 
to  his  arrondissement  and  give  him  the  freedom  of  respiration.”17 

In  the  second  place  it  is  asserted  that  the  election  of  deputies 
from  larger  districts  will  diminish  the  evil  of  government  inter- 
ference in  the  elections,  for  the  reason  that  the  larger  the  district 
from  which  the  deputy  is  chosen  the  more  difficult  it  will  be  to 
influence  enough  voters  to  affect  the  result.  Choice  from  petty 
circumscriptions,  in  each  of  which  the  government  has  numerous 
functionaries  who  serve  it  as  electioneering  agents,  thanks  to 
the  centralized  administrative  system,  naturally  facilitates  the 
control  of  the  government  over  the  elections.  “Government  pres - 

17  “Vues  Politiques,”  La  Revue  de  Paris  (1910),  v.  18,  p.  849-851.  For  further 
criticism  of  the  scrutin  d’ arrondissement,  see  an  article  by  “X”  entitled  the 
“Sophistication  du  suffrage  universel,,  in  the  Revue  des  Sciences  Politiques , 25, 
344-363;  Bonnets,  Report  to  the  10th  Radical  Congress ; Ferneuil,  "La  R6forme  Elec- 
torate et  le  Parti  Progressiste,”  in  Rev.  Pol.  et  Pari.  40:  507  ff.;  uRev.  du  Droit 
public,  25, 183-194;  art.  by  Goblet,  ibid,  32:  417-430;  Rev.  Pol.  et  Pari,  June,  1902, 
pp.  418-432;  July,  1905,  pp.  5-13. 


620 


THE  AMERICAN  POLITICAL  SCIENCE  REVIEW 


sur”  in  the  elections  is  an  old  practice  in  France,  it  having  been 
particularly  notorious  under  the  second  empire.  Since  the  es- 
tablishment of  the  third  republic  the  methods  of  the  empire  have 
never  been  resorted  to  with  the  same  openness  and  on  the  same 
scale,  except  perhaps,  by  MacMahon  at  the  time  of  the  Seize  Mai 
crisis  in  1877.  Nevertheless,  the  Republicans,  while  respect- 
ing appearances  somewhat  more  scrupulously  than  the  Mon- 
archists did,  have  rarely  hesitated  to  employ  the  influence  of  the 
government,  in  close  contests,  to  defeat  its  adversaries  and  to 
secure  the  return  of  friendly  deputies.  Generally  professing  a 
benevolent  neutrality,  the  government  sometimes  goes  to  the 
length  of  instructing  the  prefects  on  the  eve  of  an  election  to  ab- 
stain from  all  participation  in  the  campaign,  but  such  orders  are 
intended  largely  for  appearance’  sake  and  are  not  expected  to 
be  obeyed.18  Candidates  favored  by  the  government  are  no 
longer  openly  presented  as  “official  candidates”  to  the  voters  by 
means  of  notices  printed  on  white  paper — reserved  in  France  for 
official  purposes  only — accompanied  by  letters  of  recommendation 
from  the  government  or  even  from  the  chief  of  state  himself, 
as  was  a common  practice  during  the  second  empire,  but  there 
are  other  ways  of  making  known  the  preferences  of  the  govern- 
ment and  of  exerting  an  effective  pressure  upon  the  electorate.19 
Sometimes  the  voters  of  a poor  and  impecunious  circumscription 
are  given  to  understand  that  in  case  the  government  candidate 
is  not  elected  they  need  expect  nothing  in  the  way  of  grants  for 
local  improvements  or  favors  in  the  form  of  appointments  or 
decorations.  No  pressure  could  be  more  effective  than  threats 

i 

18  An  illustration  of  the  possibilities  of  government  intervention  was  afforded 
by  the  election  of  1885.  The  government  at  first  instructed  the  prefects  to  abstain 
from  all  activity  in  behalf  of  particular  candidates.  At  the  first  balloting  the 
reactionaries  elected  177  deputies  and  the  republicans  only  131,  leaving  266  seats 
to  be  filled  at  the  second  balloting.  The  government,  greatly  alarmed  at  the 
prospect  of  being  left  in  the  minority,  hastened  to  give  the  prefects  new  instruc- 
tions and  the  result  was  the  election  of  241  republicans  and  only  25  monarchists 
at  the  second  balloting. 

19  “Forty  years,”  says  M.  Picot,  “have  separated  us  from  the  white  placards 
(^posters  used  by  the  government  during  the  second  empire  for  making  known  to 
the  voters  its  candidates)  but  the  official  candidature  has  lost  nothing  but  its  eti- 
quette.” Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  1906,  p.  542. 


ELECTORAL  REFORM  IN  FRANCE 


621 


of  this  kind,  especially  in  the  rural  communes,  which  are  noto- 
rious for  their  mendicancy.20  Whenever  the  reelection  of  an  in- 
fluential deputy  is  desired  by  the  government  it  not  only  makes 
lavish  promises  to  his  constituency,  but  it  makes  known  its  de- 
sires to  every  functionary  in  the  arrondissement  from  the  prefect 
down  to  the  school-teachers,  tobacco  buralists,  letter  carriers  and 
road  overseers,  all  of  whom  are  expected  to  use  their  influence 
in  .his  behalf.  Many  of  these  functionaries  owe  their  appoint- 
ments in  fact  to  the  local  deputy  and  they  are  largely  dependent 
upon  him  for  their  advancement.21  Consequently  they  are  vi- 
tally interested  in  the  election  of  a deputy  who  enjoys  the  favor 
of  the  government.  A common  argument  which  one  hears  in 
France  today  in  favor  of  the  abolition  of  the  offices  of  prefect  and 
subprefect,  is  that  these  officials  are  electioneering  agents  be- 
fore everything  else.22 

Whether  the  enlargement  of  the  electoral  circumscription  will 
do  away  with  the  abuse  of  government  interference  in  the  elec- 
tions may  be  seriously  doubted.  It  may  render  the  practice  less 
easy  and  less  efficacious  but  it  will  not  remove  the  source,  which  is 
to  be  found  in  the  centralized  character  of  the  administrative  sys- 
tem and  the  somewhat  low  state  of  French  political  customs  and 
morality.  The  truth  is,  public  sentiment  in  France,  to  a large 
extent,  tolerates  the  practice  somewhat  as  public  opinion  in  the 

20  Compare  Lefevre-Pontalis  Les  Lois  et  les  Moeurs  Electorates,  pp.  47,  97;  see 
also  his  Les  elections  en  Europe  a la  Fin  du  XIX  Sihcle,  ch.  I. 

21  The  Temps  of  November  28,  1912,  speaking  of  the  subprefect  remarks  that 
“it  is  no  secret  today  that  the  subprefect  owes  his  appointment  to  the  deputy 
and  counts  on  his  influence  to  secure  promotion.  How,  under  such  circumstances 
could  he  fail  to  be  devoted  to  the  interests  of  his  master?  Political  agent  of  the 
government,  the  prot6g6  of  members  of  parliament  he  will  pass  his  life  in  serving 
them  and  in  being  served  by  them.” 

22  Jeze,  Elements  du  Droit  Public  et  Administratif , 1910,  p.  138.  It  is  a saying  in 
France  that  a good  prefect  is  one  who  makes  a good  electioneering  agent  and  a good 
minister  of  the  interior  (the  minister  who  appoints  and  controls  the  prefects)  is 
one  who  successfully  carries  the  elections  for  the  government.  Indeed  the  selec- 
tion of  this  minister  is  often  made  with  reference  to  his  qualifications  as  a manager 
of  elections  (cf.  Leyret  La  Tyrannie  des  Politiciens,  p.  115).  M.  Leyret  tells  of 
a prefect  who  in  1906  not  only  prepared  the  electoral  placards  of  a certain 
candidate  but  wrote  articles  in  his  behalf  each  day  for  two  newspapers.  (Ibid., 
p.  124). 


622 


THE  AMERICAN  POLITICAL  SCIENCE  REVIEW 


United  States  tolerates  appointments  and  removals  for  political 
reasons.  All  governments  in  France,  irrespective  of  party,  have 
resorted  to  it,  some  less  openly,  to  be  sure,  than  others.  It 
always  has  existed,  says  M.  Faguet,  and  always  will  exist.23 

A third  argument  advanced  in  favor  of  the  system  of  “scrutin 
de  liste”  is  that  it  will  do  away,  in  some  measure  at  least,  with 
the  gross  inequalities  of  representation  due  to  the  existence  of  so 
many  petty  electoral  circumscriptions.  The  electoral  law  of  1889 
provides  that  each  administrative  arrondissement  shall  elect  one 
deputy  for  every  100,000  inhabitants  and  an  additional  deputy 
for  each  fraction  thereof,  and  that  each  arrondissement,  irrespec- 
tive of  its  population,  shall  have  at  least  one  deputy.  The  moment 
therefore,  the  population  of  an  arrondissement  passes  100,000  it 
is  entitled  to  an  additional  deputy.  It  thus  happens  that  the 
circumscription  of  Barcelonnette  in  the  department  of  the  Basses- 
Alpes,  with  a population  in  1910  of  13,648  inhabitants  elects  one 
deputy,  while  the  first  circumscription  in  the  department  of  the 
Seine  with  a population  of  112,098  elects  but  one.  Twelve  cir- 
cumscriptions with  a total  population  of  269,977  inhabitants  elect 
twelve  deputies  while  twelve  others  with  an  aggregate  population 
of  1,221,160,  or  nearly  five  times  as  many  inhabitants,  elect  only 
twelve.24  It  is  also  a subject  of  complaint  that  the  basis  of  rep- 
resentation is  the  total  population  instead  of  the  number  of 
voters,  the  effect  of  which  is  to  give  those  districts  which  have  a 
large  foreign  population  representation  out  of  all  proportion  to 
the  number  of  voters.  Thus  according  to  the  census  of  1906, 
the  arrondissement  of  Briey  had  a population  of  100,525  and 
therefore  elected  two  deputies  although  27,000  of  the  inhabitants, 
or  26  per  cent  of  the  total,  were  aliens  without  the  franchise. 
The  same  situation  exists  in  the  arrondissement  of  Nice  where 

23  Problemes  Politiques  du  Temps  Present  (1900),  p.  27. 

24 Professor  Moreau,  in  his  Pour  le  Regime  Parlementaire  (p.  294),  speaks  of  the 
unjustifiable  curiosities  of  a law  which  allows  100,000  people  in  one  community  a 
deputy  and  a few  thousand  somewhere  else  a deputy;  which  allows  20,000  electors 
to  chose  a deputy  here  and  2,000  to  chose  one  somewhere  else;  and  which  produces 
a parliament  that  does  not  represent  a majority  of  the  voters  of  the  country. 


ELECTORAL  REFORM  IN  FRANCE 


623 


more  than  a third  of  the  population  is  alien.  It  thus  happens 
that  whereas  Briey  with  22,877  voters  elects  two  deputies  and 
Nice  with  31,183  elects  three,  there  are  nine  other  circumscrip- 
tions each  having  more  than  31,000  voters  but  each  of  which 
elects  only  one  deputy. 

Not  only  do  gross  inequalities  exist  in  respect  to  the  popula- 
tion of  the  electoral  districts  but  also  in  regard  to  the  representa- 
tion of  the  different  departments.  Thus  the  Basses- Alpes  in  1906 
had  a population  of  113,126  and  elected  5 deputies,  the  Ariege 
with  205,684  elected  three;  the  Var  with  324,638  elected  four, 
that  is,  with  nearly  three  times  as  many  inhabitants  as  the  Bas- 
ses-Alpes  it  elected  one  deputy  less.25  These  statistics  furnish  the 
basis  for  the  contention  put  forward  by  the  advocates  of  elec- 
toral reform  that  the  chamber  of  deputies  has  ceased  to  be  a 
body  which  represents  the  electorate  of  the  nation.  In  1910  a 
deputy  was  called  to  order  by  the  President  of  the  chamber  for 
asserting  that  the  chamber  at  that  time  represented  only  4,500- 
000  electors  out  of  a total  of  10,00,000,  but  in  a sense  he  was 
stating  a fact.  According  to  statistics  presented  by  MM.  Ay- 
nard  and  Paul  Deschanel  in  1909  an  average  of  55  per  cent  of  the 
electors  of  the  country  were  unrepresented  in  the  chamber  dur- 
ing the  period  from  1876  to  1906.  The  present  chamber,  elected 
in  1910,  is  said  to  represent  exactly  43.4  per  cent  of  the  electors 
of  France.26  The  following  table  from  a report  made  by  M. 
Flandin  shows  the  number  of  electors  actually  represented  by 
deputies  of  their  own  choosing  and  the  number  unrepresented 
since  1876: 


25  For  discussions  and  statistical  tables  regarding  the  existing  inequalties  of 
representation,  see  Chardon  p.  12-13;  Magne,  pp.  82-86;  Clement,  La  Reforme 
Electorate,  pp.  9-14;  Roszner,  “Le  Suffrage  Universel  en  France, ” the  Revue  de 
Hongrie,  July,  1912;  Groussier’s  Report,  cited  above  pp.  199  ff. ; Marquart  “Comment 
Nous  Sommes  Represent^es,”  in  the  Journal  de  la  Societie  de  Statistique  de  Paris. 
1905;  Tronqual,  pp.  75  ff;  Hilleret  pp.  18-19;  Bonnet’s  Rapport,  pp.  248  ff.  See 
“Lectures  Pour  Tous,”  April,  1902,  for  a popular  and  suggestive  article  entitled 
uLes  Frangais  sont-ils  Egaux  devant  le  Bulletin  de  Vote?” 

26 Rapport  par  A.  Groussier  fait  au  nom  de  la  Com.  du  Suff.  Universel  sur 
TElection  des  Deps.,  etc.,  1911,  No.  826,  p.  11. 


624 


THE  AMERICAN  POLITICAL  SCIENCE  REVIEW 


Votes  received 

by  deputies  Voters 


Year  elected  unrepresented 

1876  4,458,584  5,422,283 

1877  5,059,106  5,048,551 

1881 4,567,052  5,600,000 

1885 4,042,964  6,000,000 

1889 4,526,086  5,800,000 

1893 4,513,511  5,930,000 

1898 4,906,000  5,633,000 

1902 5,159,000  5,818,000 

1906 5,209,606  6,383,852 

1910 5,061,271  6,598,288 


From  the  above  table  it  appears  that  but  one  chamber,  that  of 
1877  (exceptional  because  of  the  sixteenth  May  crisis),  was  com- 
posed of  deputies  who  represented  a majority  of  the  voters,  that 
is,  deputies  who  had  received  a majority  of  the  votes  cast,  and 
in  this  case  the  majority  was  insignificant  (11,000).  It  is  a cause 
of  constant  complaint  by  the  electoral  reformers  that  as  a conse- 
quence of  this  illusory  system  of  representation  important  laws 
are  frequently  voted  by  parliamentary  majorities  which  repre- 
sent only  a minority  of  the  voters.  Thus  the  law  of  1905  for 
the  separation  of  church  and  state  was  passed  by  the  vote  of  341 
deputies  who  represented  exactly  2,647,315  electors  out  of  a total 
of  10,967,000.27  Similarly  the  chamber  which  voted  the  law 
against  the  religious  congregations  represented  only  2,993,812 
electors  out  of  11,219,992  and  the  majority  which  overthrew  the 
Dupuy  ministry  in  June,  1890,  represented  only  a minority  of 
the  electors. 

Still  another  argument  in  favor  of  the  system  of  “scrutin  de 
liste”  is  that  its  introduction  will  open  the  way  for  administra- 
tive reform  for  which  there  is  a crying  need  and  a wide  spread 
popular  demand  in  France  and  which,  next  to  electoral  reform, 
was  the  most  widely  discussed  question  of  internal  politics  in  the 
elections  of  1910.28  So  long  as  the  deputy  is  elected  from  a petty 
district  of  which  he  is  the  political  master  and  whose  control  is 
maintained  largely  through  a distribution  of  offices  and  honors, 


27Duguit,  Droit  Constitutional,  1911,  vol.  1,  p.  380. 

28  See  Fouquet,  Programmes  et  Engagements  Electoraux,  Paris,  1911,  pp.  22  ff; 
also  Demartial,  La  Reforme  Administrative , Paris,  1911,  p.  73. 


ELECTORAL  REFORM  IN  FRANCE 


625 


the  popular  demand  for  decentralization  and  the  abolition  of  use- 
less offices  will  naturally  not  be  regarded  with  favor  by  the  cham- 
ber.2^ For  example,  there  is  a strong  popular  demand  in  France 
for  the  abolition  of  the  sub-prefectures;  the  prefectural  coun- 
cils and  of  various  other  administrative  posts  the  incumbents  of 
which  have  few  duties,  but  the  deputies  have  shown  little  real 
sympathy  for  the  proposed  reform  for  the  evident  reason  that 
it  would  mean  the  surrender  of  an  important  source  of  their  po- 
litical power.  Their  attitude  has  been  exactly  similar  to  that  of 
our  own  representatives  in  respect  to  the  abolition  of  useless  cus- 
toms districts. 

Such  are  the  principal  arguments  in  support  of  the  system  of 
“scrutin  de  liste.”  The  “arrondissementers,”  although  consid- 
erably in  the  minority  in  the  Chamber  are  by  no  means  inactive. 
The  argument  that  the  intellectual  niveau  and  the  breadth  of 
view  of  the  deputy  will  be  improved  if  elected  from  larger  dis- 
tricts, rests,  they  say,  upon  opinion  rather  than  upon  knowledge 
or  experience.  The  chamber  chosen  in  1885  according  to  the 
“scrutin  de  liste”  method  was  not  superior  in  character,  ability, 

29  “Under  the  system  of  scrutin  d’arrondissement,”  says  M.  Raymond  Poin- 
care, “the  deputy  enters  the  chamber  with  chained  feet.  He  cannot  take  a step 
without  hearing  the  noise  of  chains  which  reminds  him  of  his  slavery.  He  desires 
to  be  the  representative  of  France;  but  he  is  the  courtier  of  an  arrondissement. 
Ask  him  for  administrative  or  financial  reform;  propose  to  him  a law  for  the  pub- 
lic interest  and  he  will  turn  toward  his  petty  ‘chef-lieu’  an  interrogating  look  and 
an  anxious  thought.  Perhaps  he  will  consent  to  abolish  for  twenty-four  hours  the 
sub-prefectures  because  he  knows  with  certainty  that  tomorrow  the  government 
will  demand  with  insistence  their  immediate  reestablishment.  But  you  must  not 
expect  him  to  sacrifice  for  the  good  of  the  country  an  unoccupied  ‘guarde  generale’ 
or  a sleeping  tribunal.”  “Vues  Politiques”  in  th q Revue  de  Paris,  vol.  17  (1910), 
p.  849. 

“Why  is  it,”  asks  M.  Hilleret,  “that  there  are  in  France  today  prefects  who 
administer  nothing,  judges  who  decide  only  20  or  30  cases  a year,  collectors  and 
other  functionaries  who  have  little  or  nothing  to  do.”  The  answer  is,  the  deputy 
needs  this  patronage  to  maintain  control  of  his  petty  circumscription — Reforme 
Electorate,  p.  21. 

It  is  true  that  for  some  years  past  the  chamber  has  with  a few  exceptions  annu- 
ally stricken  from  the  budget  the  appropriation  for  the  maintenance  of  the  sub- 
prefects, but  each  time,  upon  the  demand  of  the  government,  the  amount  has  been 
restored.  See  the  speech  of  M.  Pierre  Leroy-Beaulieu  in  the  chamber,  November, 
30,  1911,  Journal  officiel,  p.  3140;  also  the  Temps  for  November  28,  1912. 


626 


THE  AMERICAN  POLITICAL  SCIENCE  REVIEW 


or  largeness  of  horizon  to  those  that  have  been  elected  according 
to  the  system  of  “scrutin  d’arrondissement;”  it  left  no  record  of 
achievement  in  the  way  of  constructive  or  reform  legislation;  all 
the  great  legislative  reforms  of  the  Third  Republic  have  been 
the  work  of  parliaments  elected  by  the  single  member  district 
method.30  Again,  the  “ arrondissementers”  point  out  that  the 
election  of  deputies  from  the  department  at  large  would  estab- 
lish a gross  inequality  of  power  among  the  voters  of  different 
parts  of  France.  Thus  under  the  system  of  “scrutin  de  liste” 
as  introduced  in  1885  a Parisian  voter  had  38  votes  (the  number 
of  deputies  then  elected  from  the  department  of  the  Seine)  where- 
as the  voter  in  Lozere  and  the  other  small  departments  had  only 
three.  If  the  same  system  were  in  force  today  the  Parisian  elec- 
tor would  have  50  votes.  What  is  more  important,  as  the  ad- 
vocates of  the  single  member  district  method  have  shown,  it 
would  be  impossible  for  any  elector  in  a large  department  like 
the  Seine  which  now  elects  50  deputies  to  vote  intelligently,  for 
the  reason  that  he  would  necessarily  be  ignorant  of  the  qualifica- 
tions of  so  many  candidates.31  Under  such  a system,  moreover, 
the  existence  of  close  relations  between  the  deputy  and  his  con- 
stituents would  be  impossible.32  Furthermore,  election  of  the 
deputy  from  the  department  at  large  will  not  necessarily  prevent 
him  in  fact  from  being  the  representative  of  a particular  portion 
of  the  department.  It  will  still  be  possible  for  deputies  through 
understandings  and  agreements  to  partition  the  department 
among  themselves  so  that  each  will  be  the  representative  of  a 

30  Compare  Breton  La  R6forme  Elector  ale,  pp.  13-15;  Chardon,  La  Reforme  ’Elec- 
torate en  France , p.  277. 

31  It  should  be  remarked  however  that  the  bill  which  passed  the  chamber  in 
July,  1912,  differed  from  the  law  of  1885  in  that  it  provided  for  the  division  into 
smaller  electoral  circumscriptions  of  departments  which  elect  more  than  seven 
deputies,  so  that  no  elector  would  be  called  upon  to  vote  for  more  than  seven 
candidates. 

32  To  Professor  Duguit  this  is  an  argument  in  favor  of  the  system  of  “scrutin  de 
liste.”  ‘‘The  deputy,”  he  says,  “is  not  the  agent  (manditaire)  of  the  elector,  but 
of  the  country,  and  consequently  there  is  no  reason  why  either  should  be  personally 
acquainted  with  the  other;  on  the  contrary  personal  acquaintanceship  between 
them  tends  to  make  the  deputy  a mere  commissioner  of  the  elector  and  obliges 
him  to  pass  his  time  in  the  ministerial  anti-chambers  soliciting  places  and  favors.” 
Droit  Constitutionnel,  vol.  i,  p.  376. 


ELECTORAL  REFORM  IN  FRANCE 


627 


small  constituency,  charged  with  the  care  of  its  particular  in- 
terests and  subject  to  the  same  local  influences  of  which  there 
is  now  so  much  complaint.  Indeed,  according  to  M.  Poincar6 
this  is  what  happened  in  1885  when  the  system  of  “scrutin  de 
liste”  was  introduced.  Each  former  circumscription,  demanded 
and  obtained  its  own  particular  delegate  to  look  after  its  own 
particular  interests  so  that  notwithstanding  election  from  the 
department  at  large,  each  deputy  was  in  fact  the  representative 
of  a particular  arrondissement.  The  old  habits  and  practices, 
he  adds,  remained  intact,  electoral  customs  were  not  improved 
and  the  enlargement  of  the  district  was  only  a vain  appearance.33 

III.  PROPORTIONAL  REPRESENTATION 

Finally  the  “ arrondissementers”  assert,  what  is  of  course  true, 
that  the  single  member  district  system  does  in  fact  insure  a certain 
degree  of  minority  representation  since  there  are  few  departments 
in  which  a single  party  is  able  to  carry  all  the  arrondissements  of 
which  the  department  is  composed,  whereas  under  the  “scrutin 
de  liste”  system,  “pure  and  simple”  (that  is  without  proportional 
representation),  the  party  having  a majority  in  the  department 
would,  of  course,  elect  all  the  deputies  to  which  the  department 
is  entitled  just  as  the  majority  party  in  a particular  American 
State  usually  chooses  all  the  presidential  electors  to  which  the 
state  is  entitled.34 

33  “Vues  Politiques”  in  La  Revue  de  Paris,  April  15,  1910,  vol.  17,  p.  851.  See 
also  Ferneuil,  “La  R6forme  Electorate,”  Rev.  Pol.  et  Pari,  vol.  59,  p.  465. 

34  Thus  in  the  department  of  the  Seine  the  Radical  and  Radical  Socialist  party 
with  216,000  votes  would  elect  the  50  deputies  to  which  the  department  is  entitled 
while  the  votes  of  the  197,000  Socialists  Unifies  and  those  of  the  188,000  Progres- 
sists, Nationalists,  and  Clericals  would  count  for  nothing,  whereas  under  the 
system  of  proportional  representation  the  Seine  would  today  be  represented  by 
12  Conservatives,  15  Socialists  Unifies  and  23  Radical  Republicans.  J.  L.  Bonnet, 
in  his  report  to  the  10th  Radical  and  Radical  Socialist  Congress  of  1910,  asserted 
that  under  the  system  of  “scrutin  de  liste”  pure  and  simple  uncombined  with 
proportional  representation  the  republicans  would  lose  more  seats  than  they 
would  gain,  as  actually  happened  in  1885  when  more  than  200  reactionaries  were 
elected  to  the  chamber.  With  this  system  in  force  the  Republicans,  he  says,  would 
have  no  representatives  today  from  the  departments  of  Loire-Inferieure,  Maine- 
et-Loire,  Morbihan,  Calvados,  Vienne  and  the  other  reactionary  departments. 
According  to  another  writer  there  are  25  departments  in  which  the  anti-govern- 
ment bloc  would  have  the  majority. 


628 


THE  AMERICAN  POLITICAL  SCIENCE  REVIEW 


For  this  reason  there  are  today  few  advocates  of  the  general 
ticket  system  uncombined  with  a scheme  of  proportional  repre- 
sentation, such  as  that  which  existed  from  1885  to  1889.  Most 
of  the  electoral  reform  bills  that  have  been  before  the  parliament 
in  recent  years  have  provided  for  a combination  of  “scrutin  de 
liste”  with  a scheme  of  proportional  representation  and  it  was 
in  this  form  that  the  bill  passed  the  chamber  in  July,  1912.  In- 
deed the  system  of  “scrutin  de  liste”  is  demanded  first  of  all, 
because  it  is  essential  to  a system  of  proportional  representation. 

Naturally  the  chief  argument  in  its  favor  is  that  the  existing 
majority  system  does  not  secure  representation  of  the  various  cur- 
rents of  political  thought  and  opinion  in  the  country,  at  least  not 
in  proportion  to  the  numerical  strength  of  the  parties  which  hold 
these  opinions.  The  following  table  compiled  by  M.  Dolory 
shows  how  the  parties  were  actually  represented  in  the  Chamber 
in  1906  and  how  they  would  have  been  represented  had  the  sys- 
tem of  proportional  representation  been  in  force.35 


Parties 

Actual  No.  of 
deputies 

Proportional 

Reactionaries 

85 

127 

Nationalists 

29 

37 

Progressists 

73 

84 

Radicals 

214 

186 

Radical  and  Radical  Socialists 

108 

82 

Unified  Socialists 

51 

47 

Independent  Socialists 

20 

12 

According  to  this  estimate  the  Reactionary  and  Conservative 
parties  (the  first  three  mentioned  in  the  above  table)  would  have 
gained  61  seats  whereas  the  republican  groups  would  have  lost 
66  seats.  According  to  M.  La  Chesnais,  the  Radicals  and  Radi- 
cal Socialists  polled  26.94  per  cent  of  the  total  vote  and  elected 
33.26  per  cent  of  the  deputies.  In  1902  they  had  37  seats  more 
than  their  voting  strength  entitled  them  to  and  in  1906,  76  too 
many.36 

35  Cited  by  Chardon,  p.  210,  and  by  Breton,  Reforme  Electorate,  p.  82. 

36“Les  Radicaux  et  la  Representation  Proportionnelle,”  Rev.  Pol.  et  Pari. 
(1906),  vol.  50,  p.  63.  See  also  his  “La  Representation  Proportionnelle  et  les 
Parties  Politiques,”  1904,  p.  58. 


ELECTORAL  REFORM  IN  FRANCE 


629 


Naturally  the  attitude  of  the  parties  on  the  question  of  propor- 
tional representation  has  been  determined  largely  by  the  proba- 
ble effect  which  it  would  have  upon  their  future — in  short  consid- 
erations of  practical  politics  rather  than  principles  have  influenced 
their  action  in  supporting  or  opposing  the  system.  It  is  gener- 
ally admitted  that  the  Conservatives,  including  the  Progressists 
and  Nationalists,  would  gain  by  the  establishment  of  a system 
of  proportional  representation  and  so  they  have  uniformly  sup- 
ported the  bills  for  its  introduction.  The  Socialist  Unifies  in 
their  congress  of  1906  endorsed  the  principle  and  adopted  it  as 
a part  of  their  program  although  it  is  not  quite  clear  that  they 
would  gain  anything  in  the  way  of  additional  seats.  The  party 
known  as  the  Action  Liberale  has  also  pronounced  in  favor  of  it. 
The  Independent  Socialists,  however,  are  opposed  and  lately  the 
Radicals  and  Radical  Socialists  in  their  congress  have  pronounced 
against  it 37  although  the  party  is  badly  divided  on  the  question, 
many  of  its  leaders  being  ardent  supporters  of  the  system.38 
On  the  electoral  reform  bill  of  1909,  which  provided  for  the  sys- 
tem of  proportional  representation  practically  all  the  Conserva- 
tives, Nationalists,  Liberals,  Progressists,  and  Socialists  Unifies 
voted  in  the  affirmative ; the  Republicans  were  about  equally  di- 
vided while  about  20  per  cent  of  the  voters  of  the  Independent 
Socialists  and  of  the  Radicals  and  Radical  Socialists  were  cast  in 
favor  of  it. 

The  division  among  the  Republicans  is  due  to  the  feeling  of  un- 
certainty among  them  in  regard  to  the  effect  which  the  system 
will  have  on  their  representation  in  the  chamber.  Many  of 
them  fear  that  the  result  will  be  a reduction  of  the  number  of 
deputies  which  they  have  under  the  present  system  and  a 
strengthening  of  the  conservative  and  reactionary  forces  in  the 
chamber.  They  already  have  a safe  majority,  therefore,  they 
argue,  why  take  chances  with  a system  which  is  certain  to  in- 
crease the  strength  of  the  opposition  and  may  cause  their  own 
majority  to  disappear?  That  such  will  be  the  result,  however, 
is  denied  by  various  writers.  According  to  one  of  the  most  care- 
ful students  of  the  question  the  parties  would  be  represented  in 

37  Le  Temps,  October  12  and  13,  1912. 

38  See  Bonnet’s  Report  to  the  10th  Radical  Congress,  cited  above. 


630 


THE  AMERICAN  POLITICAL  SCIENCE  REVIEW 


the  chamber  as  follows,  under  the  system  proposed  by  the  bill 
which  passed  the  chamber  in  1912:  Conservatives,  166,  a gain 
of  14  seats ; Socialist  Unifies  who  usually  oppose  the  government, 
62,  a loss  of  13  seats;  and  Republicans  of  various  groups,  369 
a loss  of  one  seat ; total  597.39  So  far  as  the  strength  of  the  Repub- 
licans is  concerned  these  figures  do  not  represent  any  change, 
their  number  of  deputies  at  the  present  time  being  370.  Their 
majority  over  the  Conservatives  and  Socialist  Unifies  would  still 
be  upwards  of  80;  consequently  they  have  nothing  to  fear  from 
proportional  representation.40  Not  only  this,  but,  it  is  con- 
tended by  many  persons  that  the  party  will  gain  in  stability, 
cohesion,  and  discipline,  and  be  freed  from  the  existing  danger 
due  to  coalitions  between  the  Socialist  Unifies  and  conservatives 
against  the  Republican  candidates  at  the  second  ballotings. 
Since  the  Republican  groups  have  an  unquestioned  majority  in 
the  country,  they  would  always  be  certain  it  is  contended  of  an 
equal  majority  in  the  chamber  which  is  not  now  the  case.  They 
might  lose  a few  seats  but  they  would  be  assured  of  a consoli- 
dated, stable  majority.  For  many  years  almost  the  entire 
vote  of  the  Socialist  Unifies  was  thrown  to  the  support  of  the 
radical  candidates  at  the  second  balloting  and  this  outside  sup- 
port was  chiefly  responsible  for  the  radical  majority.  But  in 
recent  years  the  Socialist  Unifies  have  changed  their  tactics  and 
in  all  the  bye-elections  that  have  occurred  since  the  present 
chamber  was  elected  (1910)  they  have  thrown  their  support  to 
the  conservative  or  opposition  candidates.  Thus  the  radical  ma- 
jority has  been  put  in  jeopardy  and  its  preservation  intact  is 
never  assured  under  the  existing  system;  the  danger  will  be  re- 
moved by  the  adoption  of  a system  of  proportional  representa- 
tion which  will  do  away  with  second  ballotings  and  bye-elections 
and  thus  prevent  coalitions  between  the  extreme  parties.41 

39Lavergne  “La  Reforme  filectorale  jugee  au  point  de  Vue  de  ses  Resultats 
Statistiques,”  Revue  Pol.  et  Pari.,  January  1913,  p.  80. 

40  That  the  radical  party  would  be  benefited  by  proportional  representation  is 
affirmed  by  La  Chesnais  in  an  article  entitled  “Les  Radicaux  et  la  Representation 
Proportionnelle,”  Rev.  Pol.  et  Pari.,  vol.  50.  pp.  50-78. 

41  See  on  this  point  Bonnet’s  Report;  Lavergne’s  article  cited  above;  La  Ches- 
nias,  Representation  Proportionnelle,  pp.  75-85;  La  Chapelle,  “La  discuss,  du 
projet  de  R6f.  filect.”  Rev.  Pol.  et  Pari.,  May,  1912. 


ELECTORAL  REFORM  IN  FRANCE 


631 


IV.  SECRECY  AND  LIBERTY  OF  VOTING;  GUARANTEES  AGAINST 
ELECTORAL  FRAUDS 

Parallel  with  the  movement  for  the  election  of  deputies  from 
larger  districts,  and  upon  the  basis  of  proportional  representa- 
tion, has  been  a widespread  agitation  for  important  reforms  in 
the  methods  of  electoral  procedure.  The  law  of  November  30, 
1875,  governing  the  election  of  deputies,  declares  that  voting 
shall  be  secret,  but  in  fact  it  is  scarcely  less  public  than  in  Prus- 
sia where  voting  is  by  open  voice.  This  is  particularly  true  in  the 
small  rural  communes  where  all  the  voters  are  personally  known 
to  one  another.42  The  method  of  voting  now  employed  in  France 
was  established  in  the  early  days  of  the  second  empire,  ( Decret 
reglementaire  of  February  2, 1852)  and  in  many  respects  it  is  quite 
out  of  harmony  with  modern  ideas  of  electoral  procedure.  To 
an  American,  much  of  it  seems  as  antiquated  as  the  idea  of  Mon- 
tesquieu that  voting  should  be  public  in  order  that  the  common 
people  may  be  assisted  and  instructed  by  the  more  enlightened 
classes.43 

The  decree  of  1852  provides  that  all  ballots  shall  be  marked 
outside  the  voting  hall  and  that  they  shall  be  handed  by  the  voters 
to  the  president  of  the  electoral  bureau  (usually  the  Mayor),  who 
shall  deposit  them  in  the  urn.  Ballots  are  not  printed  by  the 
state  as  in  the  United  States;  each  candidate  furnishes  his  own 
ballot  (so  that  there  are  usually  as  many  varieties  as  there  are 
candidates)  and  in  practice  they  are  often  distributed  by  the 
candidate  or  his  agents  at  the  houses  of  the  electors  some  days 
in  advance  of  the  election.  The  form  of  ballot  is  left  to  the  de- 
termination of  each  candidate  subject  only  to  the  restriction  that 
it  shall  be  of  white  paper  and  without  any  exterior  signs  or 
marks. 

But  in  practice  the  secrecy  which  this  requirement  was  in- 
tended to  insure  has  proved  quite  illusory.  The  requirement 

42  This  is  the  opinion  of  many  writers  and  publicists,  cf.  especially,  Pierre  Leroy - 
Beaulieu,  Moeurs  Electorates , p.  3;  also  his  address  in  the  chamber  of  deputies, 
March  15,  1912  {Journal  ofliciel,  pp.  715  ff.);  Fouill6e  La  Democratic  Politique  et 
Sociale  en  France  (1910)  p.  50;  and  Moye,  Droit  public , p.  63. 

43 Esprit  des  Lois , Book  I,  ch.  2. 


632 


THE  AMERICAN  POLITICAL  SCIENCE  REVIEW 


that  the  ballot  shall  be  prepared  by  the  elector  before  he  enters 
the  voting  room  facilitates  bribery,  intimidation  and  the  employ- 
ment of  other  corrupt  influences.  It  is  a common  complaint  that 
candidates  or  their  agents,  employers,  and  labor  union  repre- 
sentatives impose  their  own  ballots  upon  those  who  are  more  or 
less  under  their  control,  conduct  them  to  the  polling  place,  and 
see  that  the  particular  ballots  put  into  their  hands  are  voted.44 
This  sort  of  coercion  is  still  further  facilitated  by  the  absence  of 
the  American  rule  which  excludes  from  the  voting  place  all  per- 
sons except  election  officials,  properly  designated  watchers  and 
the  electors  who  are  engaged  in  casting  their  ballots.  In  France 
all  the  voters  of  the  circumscription  may,  so  far  as  the  size  of 
the  voting  hall  permits,  remain  in  the  room,  electioneer  and 
watch  the  procedure  of  voting. 

Naturally  the  right  of  the  candidates  to  furnish  their  own  bal- 
lots and  to  distribute  them  in  advance  of  the  election,  gives 
them  an  opportunity  to  exert  a pressure  upon  the  electors,  such 
as  candidates  do  not  have  in  the  United  States  where  there  is 
a single  ballot  containing  the  names  of  all  the  candidates,  which 
is  furnished  by  the  state  and  is  placed  in  the  voters’  hands  only 
by  an  election  officer  and  then  only  upon  his  entrance  into  the 
polling  room. 

The  requirement  that  the  ballot  shall  be  of  white  paper  and 
without  any  exterior  marks  or  signs  has  been  liberally  construed 
by  the  courts.  The  decree  specifies  nothing  as  to  the  dimensions 
of  the  ballot  or  quality  of  the  paper  and  of  course  the  term  “ white’ 
is  relative  and  more  or  less  indefinite.  Every  candidate  natur- 
ally desires  to  have  a ballot  whi  h may  be  distinguished  from 
those  of  his  opponents.  The  result  is  the  ballots  actually  em- 
ployed are  of  different  dimensions,  of  varying  shades  of  color, 
degrees  of  thickness,  texture,  grain,  etc.,  so  that  they  are  easily 

44  Compare,  on  this  point,  Ruau,  Rapport  sur  le  Secret  et  laLiberU  du  Vote,  etc., 
No.  1170.  Ch.  des  Deps.  3.  Ses.  1903,  p.  6.  Instances  are  alleged  in  which  bodies 
of  voters  thus  conducted  to  the  polls  were  forbidden  to  put  their  hands  in  their 
pockets  and  of  others  who  were  required  to  dress  especially  for  the  occasion  in 
clothes  without  pockets. 


ELECTORAL  REFORM  IN  FRANCE 


633 


recognized,  particularly  by  the  election  officer  who  deposits  them 
in  the  urn.45 

The  requirement  that  the  elector  must  hand  his  ballot  to  the 
president  of  the  election  bureau  instead  of  himself  depositing  it 
in  the  urn,  gives  this  functionary  a special  opportunity  for  de- 
tecting the  voter’s  choice  and  in  case  of  doubt  he  may  verify  his 
suspicions  by  unfolding  the  ballot,  which  the  law  permits  if  he 
believes  or  professes  to  believe  that  the  paper  handed  to  him 
contains  more  than  one  ballot.46  It  is  also  alleged  that  this 
officer  sometimes  makes  use  of  his  power  to  deposit  the  ballot  in 
the  urn  to  mark  surreptitiously  the  ballots  of  those  whom  he  recog- 
nizes as  voting  against  the  candidate  which  he  favors  so  that  he 
may  have  an  excuse  to  throw  them  out  in  the  course  of  the  count 
because  of  their  exterior  signs.47  The  candidates  are  not  allowed 
to  be  represented  by  challengers  or  watchers  of  their  own  choos- 
ing during  the  balloting  or  counting,  the  result  of  which  is  that 
many  votes  are  cast  by  persons  bearing  the  electoral  cards  of 
dead  men  or  absent  voters  48  and  there  is  also  complaint  that  the 
mayor  and  his  satellites  who  constitute  the  electoral  bureau  not 
infrequently  utilize  their  opportunity  to  slip  into  the  urn  fraudu- 
lent ballots  for  their  candidates.  The  counting  of  the  votes  takes 
place,  not  behind  closed  doors,  as  in  the  United  States,  but  in 


46  Sometimes  ballots  are  cut  obliquely  by  the  printer  or  a corner  is  clipped  off 
or  they  bear  the  name  of  the  trademark  of  the  printer,  or  a cross,  or  a flower  petal, 
all  of  which  serve  as  identifying  signs.  See  on  this  point  an  anonymous  article 
entitled  “La  sophistication  du  suffrage  universel,,  in  the  Annals  des  Sciences 
Politiques,  vol.  24,  pp.  461  ff. 

46  Cf.  Roszner  “Le  Suffrage  universel  en  France,”  Revue  de  Hongrie,  July  15, 
1912,  p.  415.  Waldeck-Rousseau  speaking  in  1901  declared  that  one  only  needed 
to  pass  a polling  place  to  be  convinced  that  the  candidates  for  whom  the  votes 
were  being  deposited  were  clearly  recognizable.  Annales  des  Ch.  des  Deps.,  1901, 
ii.,  1913.  M.  Ruau  in  his  report  of  1904  on  secrecy  and  liberty  of  voting  refers  to 
the  case  of  a mayor  in  one  department  (Garde)  who  was  able  to  advise  the  govern- 
ment before  the  ballot  box  was  opened  of  the  number  of  votes  received  by  each 
candidate. 

47  This  unlawful  marking  is  usually  done  by  means  of  a short  pencil  concealed 
in  the  president’s  hand  or  by  the  dipping  of  his  finger  in  ink  or  some  substance 
concealed  in  his  pocket  and  then  impressing  it  on  the  ballot. 

48Reinach,  Report  on  Secrecy  and  Liberty  of  Voting , etc.  No.  1674,  Ch.  des 
Deps.,  1912,  p.  3. 


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the  presence  of  noisy  and  excited  crowds  who  sometimes  gather 
around  the  tables  for  the  purpose  of  intimidating  the  election  of- 
ficers.49 Sometimes  the  lights  are  extinguished,  the  tables  over- 
turned and  the  ballot  box  made  way  with.50  The  president  of 
the  bureau  is  charged  with  the  maintenance  of  order  and  the 
law  empowers  him  to  clear  the  hall  in  case  of  grave  disorder. 
This  functionary  is  often  charged  with  provoking  sham  rows, 
after  which  the  gendarmes  are  called  in  and  the  hall  cleared, 
leaving  the  president  and  the  assessors  masters  of  the  situation 
and  free  to  fix  the  majority  of  their  candidate  at  whatever  size 
they  see  fit. 

Measures  to  prevent  abuses  such  as  the  above  and  especially 
measures  to  secure  secrecy  of  voting  have  been  the  subject  of 
frequent  discussion  in  Parliament  during  the  last  ten  years.  The 
proposal  that  received  most  favor  was  that  of  voting  under  en- 
velope as  is  the  practice  in  the  elections  to  the  German  Reichstag. 
The  chief  advantages  claimed  for  envelope  voting  is  that  it  would 
remove  all  possibility  of  identifying  the  ballot  of  any  elector  and 
would  render  impossible  the  surreptitious  marking  of  ballots  by 
the  election  officers  for  purposes  of  invalidation.  It  would  also 
eliminate  the  abuse  of  ballot  box  “ stuffing,’ 7 at  least  by  the  vot- 
ers. It  has  been  opposed,  however,  for  the  reason  that  it  would 
delay  the  process  of  counting  and  would  involve  a reflection 
upon  the  honesty  of  the  mayors  of  France!51 

A second  proposal  was  to  require  all  ballots  to  be  printed  on 
uniform  paper  of  identical  dimensions,  thickness  etc.,  such  paper 
to  be  furnished  to  the  candidates  by  the  state.  This  scheme 

49  The  tables  are  so  arranged  during  the  counting  that  the  voters  may  freely 
circulate  among  them. 

60  On  these  several  points,  see  Charbonneaux,  op.  cit.,  57  ff. ; Moye,  op.  cit.,  pp. 
60  ff.;  Leroy-Beaulieu,  op.  cit.;  Lef&vre-Pontalis,  Les  Elections  en  Europe  a la  Fin 
de  dixneuvieme  Siecle,”  1902;  also  his  Lois  et  les  Moeurs  Electorates  (1885);  Leyes, 
Le  Secret  du  vote  (1889);  Bonnet,  Etude sur Le  secret  duVoteet  les Moyens  dV Assurer 
(1901);  Benoist,  Reforme  Electorate , Appendix,  pp.  275-309;  LaCroix  “Le  Secret 
du  vote  Devant  le  Parlement  Francaise,”  Rev.  Pol.  et  Pari.,  47,  307-320;  Art.  by 
“X”,  entitled  “Le  Sophistication  du  suffrage  universel”  in  the  Annales  des  Sci- 
ences Politiques,  24:445-483;  Revue  du  Droit  public,  21,  125  ff.,  and  24,  126-127. 

51  Charbonneaux,  pp.  74-75.  For  a review  of  the  movement  in  favor  of  envelope 
voting,  see  Ruau’s  report  cited  pp.  10  ff.,  and  Lintilhac’s  Report  on  Secrecy  and 
Liberty  of  Voting,  etc.,  No.  62,  Senate,  1905,  pp.  10  ff. 


ELECTORAL  REFORM  IN  FRANCE 


635 


would  make  the  identification  of  ballots  impossible  but,  like  the 
method  of  envelope  voting,  it  would  not  prevent  intimidation  and 
the  use  of  pressure  upon  the  electors,  so  long  as  they  were  re- 
quired to  prepare  their  ballots  outside  the  voting  room. 

A third  proposal  contemplated  a collective  ballot  furnished  by 
the  state  and  containing  the  names  of  all  candidates,  similar  to 
the  ballots  used  in  the  United  States.  This  proposal  was  com- 
batted in  1901  by  Waldeck-Rousseau,  then  president  of  the  coun- 
cil and,  strange  as  it  may  seem  to  an  American,  it  has  few  ad- 
vocates in  France  today. 

A fourth  proposal  was  for  the  introduction  of  envelope  voting 
coupled  with  provision  for  a voting  booth  ( Cabine  d’isolement , 
isoloir ) in  which  the  elector  might  retire  for  the  purpose  of  pre- 
paring his  ballot.  This  is  the  Belgian  method  and  the  one  which 
has  been  adopted  by  the  recent  French  law,  to  be  described  be- 
low. The  proposal  was  first  made  the  subject  of  extended  dis- 
cussion in  the  chamber  of  deputies  in  1901,  but  was  strongly 
combatted  by  Waldeck-Rousseau  upon  the  ground  that  it  would 
involve  too  great  an  expense  to  the  communes  and  because,  he 
said,  the  voting  booth  would  become  a “ cabine  de  reflexion” 
and  thus  would  cause  delay  in  the  voting,  all  the  more  so  because 
of  the  French  practice  of  going  to  the  polls  in  organizations  or 
groups.52  Both  of  the  objections  were  greatly  exaggerated  as 
American  and  Belgian  experience  has  undoubtedly  shown.  Dur- 
ing the  past  nine  years  the  chamber  of  deputies  has  on  six  different 
occasions  passed  bills,  sometimes  by  practically  unanimous  votes, 
providing  for  envelope  voting,  for  the  secret  voting  booth  and 
allowing  candidates  to  be  represented  at  the  polls  by  witnesses 
or  challengers.  At  first  the  senate  was  willing  to  accept  only  the 
proposal  for  voting  under  envelope,  but  in  1906  it  agreed  to  ac- 
cept also  the  principle  of  the  secret  voting  booth.  It  has  stead- 
ily refused,  however,  to  concur  in  a bill  providing  for  witnesses  or 
challengers.53 

52  Waldeck-Rousseau,  Politique  Frangaise  et  Etrangere,  1903,  pp.  41-45. 

63  Waldeck-Rousseau  in  1901  vigorously  opposed  the  proposal  to  allow  candi- 
the  dates  to  have  representatives  at  the  polls  on  the  ground  that  it  would  “organ- 
ize the  battle  at  the  urn.” 


636 


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Finally,  in  July  of  the  present  year,  the  Chamber  of  Deputies 
being  convinced  that  the  Senate  would  never  agree  to  a provision 
permitting  candidates  to  have  representatives  at  the  polls,  ac- 
cepted the  Senate  bill  providing  for  voting  under  envelope  and 
for  the  isoloir.  The  law  was  promulgated  July  29,  and  will  go 
into  effect  November  first  of  this  year.  The  law  provides  that 
in  all  elections  ballots  shall  be  cast  under  envelope  furnished  by 
the  prefectoral  authorities;  that  they  shall  be  opaque  in  charac- 
ter, shall  bear  an  official  stamp,  and  shall  be  of  a uniform  type 
for  each  electoral  circumscription,  that  upon  entering  the  voting 
place  the  elector  shall  be  given  an  envelope,  and  without  leaving 
the  room  he  shall  retire  to  to  a cabine  d’isolement  so  constructed 
that  he  cannot  be  seen  and  there  he  shall  while  thus  concealed 
place  his  ballot  in  the  envelope.  This  done,  he  deposits  the  en- 
velope in  the  urn  himself  without  the  president’s  being  allowed  to 
touch  it.  This  law  will  remove  most  of  the  evils  complained  of : 
intimidation  and  outside  pressure,  the  identification  of  the  ballots 
by  election  officers  and  bystanders,  ballot  box  “ stuffing,”  sur- 
reptitious marking  of  ballots  by  the  president  of  the  bureau — in 
short,  it  will  insure  full  secrecy  of  voting.  But  it  will  not  pre- 
vent voting  under  the  names  of  dead  men  or  absent  voters  or 
fraudulent  voting  in  general,  or  fraudulent  counting.  It  is  an- 
nounced, however,  that  the  chamber  will  embody  provisions  for 
these  reforms  in  a separate  bill  and  will  press  upon  the  senate 
its  passage  at  an  early  date. 

In  addition  to  the  demand  for  more  effective  guarantees  in  the 
interest  of  secret  voting  and  the  free  exercise  of  the  electoral 
function,  there  has  been  much  discussion  of  proposed  legislation 
for  the  protection  of  the  elections  against  corrupt  and  fraudulent 
practices.  There  is  as  yet  no  comprehensive  law  in  France  that 
may  be  compared  to  an  English  or  American  corrupt  practices 
act,  but  only  a few  sporadic  provisions  prescribing  penalties  for 
bribery  and  similar  electoral  offenses. 

First  of  all,  there  are  complaints  of  fraudulent  registrations 
and  of  registration  lists  which  contain  the  names  of  dead  men 


ELECTORAL  REFORM  IN  FRANCE 


637 


and  of  electors  who  no  longer  reside  in  the  commune.54  The  reg- 
istration lists  are  permanent  in  France,  that  is,  the  voter  is  re- 
quired to  register  but  once.  To  be  sure,  the  lists  are  annually 
revised  but  as  is  usually  the  case  where  this  system  of  registration 
prevails,  many  names  remain  on  the  list  which  are  not  entitled 
to  be  there.  Not  infrequently  there  are  are  as  many  or  even  more 
votes  cast  than  the  total  male  population  over  twenty  years  of 
age.65 

The  evidence  submitted  to  the  council  of  state  in  the  contested 
election  cases  that  have  been  before  it  leave  no  doubt  that  frauds 
are  all  too  common,  especially  in  the  South  of  France  and  in 
Corsica,  while  in  the  colonies  the  elections  are  often  farcical. 
In  the  city  of  Toulouse  and  in  the  department  of  Herault,  elec- 
tion frauds  have  been  quite  notorious.56  The  old  practice  of 
“ballot  box  stuffing”  is  by  no  means  unknown  in  France  for  we 
are  told  that  in  the  elections  of  1906,  there  were  196  districts 
in  which  more  votes  were  cast  than  there  were  registered  electors. 
It  is  widely  asserted  in  France  that  the  members  of  the  electoral 
bureau  and  especially  the  president  are  the  principal  offenders. 
The  assessors  who  sit  with  the  president  are  in  fact  usually  men 
of  his  own  choosing  and  are  often  his  pliant  instruments.  With 
their  connivance,  it  is  an  easy  matter  for  him  to  deposit  fraudulent 


64  For  examples  of  fraudulent  registrations,  see  the  speech  of  Pierre  Leroy-Beau- 
lieu  in  the  Chamber,  Feb.  29,  1912.  Journal  Officiel  pp.  538  ff.  Heretofore  there 
has  been  no  prohibition  upon  registration  by  the  elector  in  more  than  one  com- 
mune, but  the  new  law  passed  in  July  of  this  year  contains  such  a provision. 

65  Thus  in  the  department  of  Ariege  there  are  74,788  electors  on  the  registration 
list,  whereas  the  total  male  population  over  20  years  of  age  is  but  66,998;  in  the 
department  of  Tarn,  the  figures  are  113,071  and  110,876  respectively.  In  one  com- 
mune where  the  total  population,  including  women  and  children  was  but  345, 
there  were  350  registered  voters. 

66  In  Herault,  M.  Paul  Leroy-Beaulieu  the  well  known  economist,  was  twice 
the  victim  of  these  frauds.  See  his  brochure  “un  chapitre  des  moeurs  Electoral es 
en  France,  dans  les  annees  1889  et  1890.”  More  recently  his  son,  Pierre,  has  had 
a somewhat  similar  experience.  See  his  own  account  of  how  elections  are  held  in 
Herault,  in  Moeurs  Electorates  en  France  au  XXe  Sibcle  (Paris,  1902).  M.  Beau- 
lieu recently  related  to  me  some  of  the  ingenious  methods  employed  in  France  to 
falsify  the  elections. 


638 


THE  AMERICAN  POLITICAL  SCIENCE  REVIEW 


ballots  in  the  urn  as  often  as  he  choses  and  to  make  the  majority 
for  his  candidate  as  large  as  he  pleases,  and  that  this  is  frequently 
done,  the  evidence  in  contested  election  cases  seems  to  leave 
little  doubt.  The  existing  legisation  for  the  prevention  of  frauds 
of  this  and  other  kinds  is  therefore  quite  inadequate.67 


67 Concerning  this  insufficiency,  see  Delpech  “Corruption  et  D6penses  Elec- 
torates,” Rev.  du  Droit  Pub.  22,  65  ff . ; 23, 97ff. ; 2 6,  314-331.  By  the  law  passed  in 
1902,  heavy  penalties  were  imposed  upon  election  officers  found  guilty  of  fraudu- 
lent acts.  The  new  law  recently  enacted  increases  these  penalties  and  provides 
that  in  case  the  offender  is  a public  functionary  the  penalty  shall  be  doubted. 


